South Africa Trip - Day 11: Soweto then WC match (6/14/10)

Sign as we enter the Soweto neighborhood. 

Woke up early so we could fit in the tour of Soweto before the WC match. Exploring the area is very humbling and amazing. Our guide took us around and into some of the shanty towns where we were able to see that these giant ghettos are pretty impressive; people are friendly, they have many of the normal community establishments (we went into one of the bars and got some beer where they had a little pool table and some neon signs), and we even go to play soccer with some of them which was a lot of fun. 

One of the shanty towns. We had seen some of this in Cape Town on the first few days, but here, they are in giant swaths throughout JoBerg. The highest congregation of them being Soweto.

Some artist painted the old smoke stacks. I thought it was a great idea and good use of previous buildings that are no longer useful. 

Us walking through a shanty town. Our driver guided us around and was also a pretty awesome tour guide. 

Here he is giving us a tour of some of the buildings for the shanty town. I believe this was the bar where we bought some beers for the road to the game.

Sidenote: that is one of the reasons I really love soccer – all you need is a ball, as I travel I see people playing soccer on all kinds of terrains, with all kinds of goals, and a range of shoes (sometimes bare feet is all that is needed). Another impressive aspect of these shanty towns is their sheer size; I think they cover more area then the city I am from and have significantly more people, a true city within a city. I imagined a small group here and there like in cape town; you really need to see it to really grasp the size of Soweto. Got to see the house Mandela used to live in, as well as some museums which were informative and great to visit. We then headed to the main stadium (where the final will be held) to watch the match between Holland and Denmark; lackluster game with the first goal being an own goal (Holland won 2-0). 

We are high tailing it to the game. The walk from the drop off to the stadium was quite the distance. It felt like we were walking forever before we got there.

We finally made it to the stadium. Now time to go in and catch the action.

Vuvuzellas are the devil's horn. People are enjoying the action.

Final score of the game. 

The gang after the game with some creepers, soon to be friends hovering in the background.

Was a great atmosphere; during the game – flags waving everywhere, people cheering and in a generally festive vibe, after the game – a South African guy came up and offered to paint our faces with green and yellow paint (all but S let him). After the stadium cleared out and we were ready to leave, we headed over to get picked up from a gas station; as we waited we hung out with some locals and some foreign fans where some shared their beers with us as we just talked to even more friendly and fun folks. 

Creeper felt bad about being in our picture, so he offered to face paint us. He wound up face painting a good dozen people after the game. 

Creeper does good work. My bro and I after the game before we start heading back. 

Some people we met in the parking lot as we waited for our ride back to the hostel. They had some beers and offered to share some, which was really nice of them. It was like a post-game tailgate.

We went into the city for dinner and watched some soccer in the “quad” where the city had put up a projector on a large canvas to show the games; was nice as all the restaurants/bars around there had plenty of patio seating and the quad itself was full of chairs for everyone to enjoy the games in public. Eventually we got back to hostel to watch some more soccer (its the thing to do during the WC) and took it easy as we have to fly back to CT tomorrow morning.

The watch party in the square where we ate dinner. I forget who Paraguay played in this game but it was nice watching so many people hanging out together watching a match.

Clearly I didnt hear them say look over here. Too enthralled in the match I guess.